Honey bee forage: red deadnettle

After yesterday’s post about mint varieties that are bee favorites, two beekeepers recommended I include red deadnettle (Lamium purpureum). I agree that it is an excellent early forage plant for bees, but I did not include it because it is considered invasive to North America and is a problem plant in some areas.

Red dead ettle is often referred to as purple deadnettle or purple archangel. The “purple” comes from the flower color, whereas the “red” comes from the color of the upper leaves. “Deadnettle” refers to the fact that, unlike a true nettle, it does not sting. In other words, it is “dead.”

It can flower at any time

The plant can produce flowers almost any time of year, including the winter in mild years. Because it is one of the first plants to bloom, it can be an important food source for bees, producing both nectar and pollen. The pollen is an unmistakable bright red color.

This annual plant can reach 18 inches high, although it usually peaks at about 12 inches. It is found along roadsides, in cultivated fields, in lawns, and in other disturbed areas. The plant is edible and known to be high in antioxidants, although I’ve heard the taste is so-so.

I keep a daily journal so I was comparing what colors of pollen were coming in today compared with a year ago. A bee landed with the brightest red pollen I’d never seen before. I have a color pollen chart so I took a look. Purple dead nettle. A mint. It has a strange growing season. A winter annual. I know that I’d seen it but never paid any attention to it. Of course I will now.

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Bees are more than a hobby;
they are a life study,
in many respects a mirror
of our own society.

—William Longgood

Why Honey Bee is Two Words

Regardless of dictionaries, we have in entomology a rule for insect common names that can be followed. It says: If the insect is what the name implies, write the two words separately; otherwise run them together. Thus we have such names as house fly, blow fly, and robber fly contrasted with dragonfly, caddicefly, and butterfly, because the latter are not flies, just as an aphislion is not a lion and a silverfish is not a fish. The honey bee is an insect and is preeminently a bee; “honeybee” is equivalent to “Johnsmith.”

—From Anatomy of the Honey Bee by Robert E. Snodgrass

State Insects

The non-native European Honey Bee is the state insect of:

Arkansas

Georgia

Kansas

Louisiana

Maine

Mississippi

Missouri

Nebraska

New Jersey

North Carolina

Oklahoma

South Dakota

Tennessee

Utah

Vermont

West Virginia

Wisconsin

Not one native bee is a state insect. The closest relative of a North American native bee to make the list is the Tarantula Hawk Wasp, the state insect of New Mexico.

Update! Minnesota now has a state bee as well as a state insect. Bombus affinis, the Rusty-Patched Bumble Bee, has been so honored. Good work, Minnesota!

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